There are a large number of strategic board games (strategy games played on a game board) on the market today. These each offer their own unique strategy and manner of playing. Many of these have a vast and long history such as chess, checkers, and Go.
One of the most well known strategic board games is chess. Chess is a well established strategy game that has been in existence for centuries. Its nearest predecessor, Chaturanga, is discussed in seventh century Sanskrit writings. Due to the nature of trade, travel and expansion, chess was popular in the known world by the fourteenth century. Chess has been played for centuries by millions of people worldwide. The traditional chess game is one of strategy through predicting an opponent's future movements of the chess pieces in order to plan the attacking and defensive positions accordingly.
There have been variations in the past to both the board and the rules of play for the game of chess, but the most common present day mode of playing chess is established for use on a gridded square game board divided into an eight by eight grid of sixty-four equal spaces, usually distinguished by being colored in an alternating dark and light color pattern, i.e., checkered. The basic rules of play for a conventional chess game include: two players (player and opposing player, or “opponent”), each using sixteen pieces of quantity and type designated as: one king, one queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights and eight pawns respectively. The object is to capture the opponent's king. Initial setup is a prescribed arrangement of pieces in the two rows closest to the player and at the opposite end of the board from the opposing player. The type of piece is clearly identified for all players and observers, traditionally by the piece's shape. Each piece is movable according to predetermined movement patterns that are different for each type of piece. Play is turn-based, with each player being allowed to move a selected one of their own pieces in a single movement pattern appropriate to the selected piece. The movement patterns include diagonal, horizontal/vertical, and combinations thereof (a 1 by 2 space L-shaped pattern). Some pieces may move multiple spaces while others may only move one space at a time. One of the piece types (pawn) is able to move forward only, while the others are not restricted in movement direction. One of the piece types (knight) is allowed to jump over pieces. All spaces on the board are available for movement, but no two pieces may occupy the same space. Any opposing player's piece is captured (removed from the board) when any one of a player's pieces moves into the space where the opposing player's piece resides. The capturing piece must be moved according to its predetermined movement pattern (except for the pawn) such that the movement pattern ends in the captured piece's space. Other than removing an opponent's captured piece, a player may only move his own piece(s) during his turn. There are four exception moves: pawn capturing, en passant, castling and queening. In the pawn capturing move, the pawn (which normally moves vertically forward only) moves diagonally forward to capture any opponent's piece in the diagonally forward space. In the en passant move, the pawn captures an opponent's pawn (only) by moving diagonally forward behind a horizontally adjacent opponent's pawn to capture the opponent's pawn even though the player's pawn does not end up in the same space as the captured and removed opponent's pawn. In castling, the player's king (which normally moves only 1 space) is moved two spaces horizontally towards a selected one of the player's rooks, and then the selected rook (which normally does not jump pieces) is jumped over the king to end up horizontally adjacent to the king on the other side of the king. The castling move is only permitted when: there are no pieces intervening between the king and the selected rook; neither the king nor the selected rook can have been moved prior to the castling move; and the king must not be under threat of capture (“in check”) in any of the three spaces it will occupy during the castling move. In the queening move, a player's pawn is turned into a queen if it is moved into the farthest row away from the player.
There are many variants on the traditional game of chess. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,957,455 (Aldridge; 1999), discloses a concealed chess game wherein the type of a player's pieces is always evident to the player, but not to the opposing player. This introduces the element of memory and deduction as a player must deduce the type of an opponent's piece from the movement pattern used by said piece. Optional rules allow initial setup in random or player-determined positioning of the player's pieces, potentially anywhere on the game board. Movement patterns and other game rules generally correspond to standard chess rules, although some variations are proposed, including more than two players, and the use of one or more “barrier pieces” that prevent movement in or through the space occupied by the barrier piece.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,553,756 (Linnekin; 1985), discloses a circular chess game played on a substantially planar game surface and includes fourteen generally straight, elongated radial zones spaced about and extending outward from a central zone. Each of the radial zones includes eight discrete spaces of two alternating colors spaced therealong and each set of corresponding spaces of the zones are disposed in an annular path extending about the central zone and the colors of each set of annular path spaces alternate thereabout. U.S. Pat. No. 3,851,883 (Hitchcock, et al.; 1974), discloses a chess game board of multiple spiral configuration provided with a center space or island and intended for a predetermined number of players depending upon the structure of the board; the number of players determining the number of spirals required for the game board. U.S. Pat. No. 4,886,279 (Taylor; 1989), discloses a circular game board for the game of chess and other games such as checkers, consisting of four concentric rings of playing areas, the center ring being circular. The center ring has four playing areas, the second ring twelve, the third ring twenty and the fourth ring twenty-eight. Four rows of corner playing areas, which may all be trilateral, radiate symmetrically from the center of the board. The outermost corner areas may be other shapes, such as circular or rhombic. The remainder of the playing areas are quadrilateral. The board is suitable for playing a conventional game of chess, but also adapts itself to a slightly modified game where the rook and queen pieces are allowed to travel around the board, moving from rank to file to create a logically valid flanking action. In the Linnekin, Hitchcock and Taylor patents, the movement patterns of the game pieces are generally similar to those of a standard chess game, but adapted to circular or spiral game boards.
There are also currently many computer programs that offer someone competition to many strategic board games. These are currently called Computer Bots. IBM's “Deep Blue” was designed to play and defeat the world's best chess players. The game of chess has few enough options for moves that it is relatively easy for computer bots to process all of the options to determine the best move to make against the human player. When playing strategic board games such as chess, humans use their problem solving capability, experience and intuition to pick what they judge to be the best move for the current situation. The computer, however, generally tries all possible move combinations on an internal board to look ahead as far as possible so that it can pick the move which leads to the most favorable positions. This brute force approach of looking at all the moves in the game is quite different from the way humans play chess or any other strategic board game. The advances in computer hardware have allowed computers to look at more and more of the moves and future moves so that specially designed hardware can now defeat the best human chess player. Some of the bots have an accumulation of chess knowledge in the form of databases for openings and end games, significantly improving the performance of chess programs. Thus there appears to be a need for strategy games that are harder for the computer to win.
A strategic board game called Stratego® increases the complexity of chess-like games by modifying the board and the types of pieces, concealing the types of pieces, redefining movement patterns for the pieces (especially as relates to capturing), and using a player-determined initial setup. Stratego®, is trademarked (registration number 0695583 in 1960) and copyrighted (1961) in the U.S., and is based on a French game called L'Attaque, disclosed as “a battle game with mobile pieces on a gameboard” in a French Patent No. 396.795 (Edan; 1909). The game of Stratego® has pieces with different strengths, with each player taking one move per turn. As the playing pieces of two opponents collide, the values of the pieces are compared and the weaker piece is removed from the game. The strength of a player's piece is hidden from the opponent and only revealed upon collision. Initial setup of the board involves each player placing her pieces in any desired location within the four rows closest to the player. The currently popular way of playing Stratego® conforms to the following summary of rules, adapted from a description published, for example, on the internet website http://www.gamerz.net/pbmserv/stratego.html.
The object of Stratego® is to capture the opponent's Flag. The game is played on a 10×10 (10 space by 10 space grid) game board (although optional rules are available for playing a scaled down “small” version of Stratego® on an 8×8 board). The game board is modified to have two “lakes” in the middle, a lake being an area that playing pieces may not be moved into or over. Each lake is a 2×2 area comprising the third and fourth spaces in from each side of the board, and in the fifth and sixth rows. Each of the two players has an army of 40 pieces comprising 12 different types, but all 40 pieces appear identical to the opposing player; i.e., a player's piece types are concealed from the opposing player, but always visible for the player. The type of an opponent's piece is only revealed to a player when the player's piece collides with the opponent's piece.
In an initial setup before starting the game, each player deploys his army by filling the four rows closest to the player with his 40 pieces. The opponent does not see the player's piece types; only where the pieces are located. Twelve different types of pieces are used in Stratego®, as listed in the following table with rank, and quantity deployed.
STRATEGO ®PIECE TYPERANKQUANTITYBombB6Marshall11General21Colonel32Major43Captain54Lieutenant64Sergeant74Miner85Scout98Spy101FlagF1
Stratego® piece movement: In a player's turn, a selected one of the player's movable pieces can be moved through unoccupied non-lake spaces according to the selected piece's designated movement pattern. Bombs and Flags cannot be moved from their initial placement, while all other (movable) pieces, except the Scout, move a single space horizontally or vertically. The Scout also moves horizontally or vertically, but may move any number of spaces, unless blocked by other pieces or a lake. When a player's piece attacks by moving onto the same space as one of the opponent's pieces, a conflict (capture move) occurs. The types of the two conflicting pieces are revealed and the piece with the higher strength (lower rank number, subject to exceptions) wins. The losing piece is captured, i.e., removed from the board and its vacated spot is then occupied by the winning piece. If the pieces are equal in rank, then both are removed from the board. Any piece may capture the Flag, thereby winning the game. Two exceptions to the capturing rules are: (a) The Bomb has a higher strength than any other piece except the Miner. The Miner can “defuse” (capture) Bombs, but otherwise can capture only the lower strength Scout, Spy, and Flag. (b) The Spy may capture the Marshall, but only if the Spy is attacking. If the Marshall attacks the Spy, the Spy is captured. Against all other pieces, except the Flag, the Spy always loses.
Many of the classical strategic board games such as checkers, chess, and Go were developed centuries ago before computers were even conceived. Thus they were not designed to be difficult for computers to play. With the exception of Go, computers have become extremely strong players at these games and are currently on par with the best human players.
It is an object of the present invention to improve upon existing strategy games by creating a strategic board game that will be much harder for a computer to play, yet enjoyable, highly competitive, and readily playable by human opponents. It is a further object to design the inventive game in a way that it can be played by adapting a standard chess board and chess pieces.